Dr Who New Adventures 33 Parasite (pdf)

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suit-troops to hunt through asteroid fields for concealed scoutships. Now she
modified it to search, not for ionization traces or exhaust debris, but signs
any signs of intelligent life.
After several hours of searching Ace had found no sign of the TARDIS, the
Doctor, or anyone else for that matter. At length, exhausted by the strain
that zero gravity had wrought on her muscles, her eyes tired by the relentless
strobing light of the surrounding environment, she tethered herself with her
belt to the trunk of a two-hundred-metrelong tree and tried to think what to
do next.
If she didn t bring antibiotics from the TARDIS soon Bernice was going to
die. She d seen enough field wounds in her time to know it was only a matter
of time. And probably not very much time at that. She felt the hammer
of impatience beating inside her head, drumming out an insistent rhythm,
telling her to get up, get moving, find the TARDIS or the Doctor, find help and
bring it to Bernice before it was too late.
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This is ridiculous, Ace cried aloud in frustration. A walk in the park, Benny.
That s what you said. She rubbed her hand across her forehead, surprised to
find the movement hurt her a great deal. Some park. Surely she wasn t
getting a headache? She hadn t had a headache for she tried to think
what, six months? A year? No. She was sure it was more nearly a year,
because she remembered
She caught herself nodding off. She knew she couldn t afford to sleep, but
she was just too exhausted even to think . . .
When she awoke half the tree had vanished into a gently lapping wall of water.
Ace blinked and looked around. The wall of water extended outward from her
present position in all directions. She thought she could detect a slight convex
curvature to the surface, indicating the portion she could see might form part
of the outside surface of a much larger sphere or ovoid mass. Moving at
approximately walking speed, the tree was carrying her remorselessly towards
the surface.
Ace swore and tried to untie her belt. Somehow it had got twisted while she
slept. She cursed her fingers, heavy with sleep, and wrenched at the belt as
she was carried closer to the water. All around she could hear the wet sucking
noises as chunks of foliage vanished beneath the surface. Great bubbles of
air driven from pockets in the foliage by the pressure of the water, exploded
from the surface. In moments Ace was soaked to the skin. At least half of
every breath she took consisted of a fine mist of water droplets. Wet, her belt
became even harder to loosen.
The water reached her feet.
She wrenched and tore at the belt. It did not give.
The water reached her knees. Her hips.
With the water around her waist, Ace stopped struggling and began des-
perately to think. She plunged her hand into the water, groped in her pocket,
found the brass telescope which Bernice had given her. Unhesitatingly she
smashed the device against the branch until the casing bent and she heard
the glass lenses inside crack and split away from their mountings. Heedless of
sharp edges, she stuffed her fingers inside the tube, grabbed the biggest piece
of glass she could find and pulled it free with a triumphant yell.
As the water rose to her chest and neck she used the broken glass to saw at
the belt holding her to the tree. She felt the leather begin to split.
She had time to draw one huge gulp of air before the water closed over her
head.
A moment later the surface exploded again as Ace burst into the air and
somersaulted away from the water with a breathless cry. Her clothes and hair
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billowed wetly around her. The battered cylinder of the brass telescope was
clutched triumphantly in one hand.
Drenched, gasping for breath, head spinning, Ace flew through the air.
Eventually she fetched up short against a mass of vegetation from which hun-
dreds of tiny, multi-legged, translucent creatures were pouring. She grabbed
hold of a handful of foliage, kissed the telescope and stuffed it back into her
pocket.
Panting hard, Ace looked around. The vegetation was still drifting towards
the surface of the water. She was far enough away from it now to realize that
it did in fact form a globular mass. She peered harder and saw blurry shapes
darting back and forth swiftly beneath the surface.
She estimated her distance from the mass as several hundred metres. It
wasn t far enough. Another minute or two at the current rate of drift would
see her carried back into the water again.
Thanks but no thanks, she muttered to herself.
She grabbed hold of the nearest branch and swung herself away into the
foliage. She had to put some distance between herself and the remorseless
waters of the lake.
As she threw herself from branch to branch, Ace became aware of a tickling
sensation across her back and hair. She stopped for a moment to run her hands
over the back of her head. The hand came away covered with a number of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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